


Smoke In A Bubble

by waitingfor_margo



Category: Original Work
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-05-21
Updated: 2017-05-21
Packaged: 2018-11-03 10:57:03
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,118
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10965813
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/waitingfor_margo/pseuds/waitingfor_margo





	Smoke In A Bubble

In prose and poetry alike it’s always about those moments when you two sit on a roof at night, watching the stars. They had done that a thousand times already though; often enough for Matt to know that it didn’t change anything between them. Right now they did, actually.  
“Isn’t it crazy that to us stars look just as far away as fireworks? When in fact they aren’t at all? And isn’t it crazy that we long for the stars when we could be just as happy with fireworks? They are more colourful and near after all but you don’t care for that anymore the moment you see these tiny white dots breaking through the black”, Jamie said through the silence that had laid between them without breaking eye contact with the little bear. “If that isn’t a good metaphor for the way humans are then I don’t know”, he chuckled.  
Matt took a swig from the cheap cherry liqueur they shared. Yeah, he knew that feeling well. Wanting what was way too far away for him to reach.

*

“Do you have a few bucks, I swear I’m so hungry I could eat for a year straight. I’ll give ‘em back tomorrow.” “Yeah, of course.” Jamie rummaged around in his bag to retrieve his wallet.  
“Hurry up though, you know Leatherman is _not amused_ ” he added with a raised eyebrow, their inside joke ringing proudly in the air, covering up all the other words in that sentence.  
“Not ever”, Matt grinned, before sprinting down the hall.

“Hey, here’s your money, the bread roll I got for that was delicious”, Matt joked. “Hey, you okay?” Jamie let his fingers slide through his thick, dark hair. He looked up at his best friend, not a second attempting to fool anyone. “No, I’m not.”  
He made one of his grotesque sad smiles, the ones where his mouth got up at one side and his eyebrows were raised and shaped just so that you knew that something was eating him up inside.  
“You want to stay a bit and talk or have a race?” “Sure.”

“You sure you don’t want one that is a bit bigger?”, Matt asked, sceptically eyeing Jamie’s race snail of choice. “Nah, yours is so fat, it’s gonna trip over its own flab and I’ll win.”  
The two boys weren’t those cheesy stereotype novel best friends with a “special place” that nobody but them knew about. They were pretty boring in picking out somewhere to hang out actually – a bench on the schoolyard.  
The snail races came with the resources. The schoolyard was surrounded by a dozen currant bushes and snails seemed to love them. When they had started, it hadn’t been more than a joke but now Jamie and Matt had snail races a few times a week; it took their mind off things, watching the tiny slippery animals go about their life only to be repositioned and expected to perform. In a way they probably felt like them.  
“Do you want to talk about it?”, Matt decided to ask after a while. Jamie stayed silent for a few minutes. “I guess I just feel like…drifting? Sorry, I can’t phrase it properly, words are so out of reach for me sometimes…and sometimes they just flood my mouth to come out…it’s…god, it’s hard. Hard to think, hard to make sense of anything.” They watched their snails in silence for a bit longer, both of them having changed directions by now. One slid towards their feet, one took off to the left and they didn’t have the heart to try and make them move forwards again. The sun made the traces that they seemed to trail after them shimmer slightly and Matt and Jamie thought that snails really weren’t as ugly as people always said.

*

Without wasting any time Jamie leaned over and gave Matt a peck on the lips. The others cheered. “Matthew, it was a pleasure to experience this with you”, he winked at him and Matt had never turned redder in his entire life.  
“Okay, who’s next? Spin the bottle!”

*

“Hey! Do you hear me?! Matt!”  
Matt barely did. There was a hissing noise in his head, making it impossible for him to focus on anything other than his body trying to kill him. “I’m dying”, he choked out while water broke through the dam. Jamie grabbed his wet face in both of his hands, maybe a bit too harsh, a desperate look in his eyes. “You need to breathe. Deeply. Close your mouth, suck in air through your nose, prolong it and then breathe out through your mouth. As slowly as you can.” Jamie’s voice had never sounded so soothing and demanding at the same time. Matt tried to do as told but it simply didn’t work. His breath came out as choked as before, interrupting his attempts at gaining oxygen the normal way. His heart must have beaten a few hundred times per minute or that’s what it felt like. Jamie took Matt’s right hand and laid it on his own chest. His own right hand came to lay on Matt’s chest. Matt felt Jamie’s breath go so slow, the air entering and leaving his body in a steady rhythm. Jamie’s hand pressed down on his chest to make him exhale in the same rhythm, slowly adjusting his technique. Their eyes didn’t leave the other until Matt felt he was able to stand up again from the corner he had sunken into.

*

“Look! They have bubbles! Let’s have some.” Jamie grabbed one of the little plastic bottles and went over to the cashier. Matt took some Hubba Bubba for himself and followed him.

“They are so pretty.” Matt blew some more. “It’s a tragedy that nobody found a way to make them last forever yet.” “Well, they would become a curse, just imagine you coming home to your husband and kids and those little bastards filled your entire house with them. Where would you put them?” Matt snickered.  
“Give it to me, I’ll show you something.” Matt handed the small bottle over and watched as Jamie took a drag of his cigarette and blew the smoke through the loop. The resulting bubble that broke free was filled with wafting grey. “Looks slightly gross but cool”, Matt said and tapped against the bubble. It burst and set the smoke free that faded away quickly. The bubble seemed to keep it alive and concentrated. Without its confines it could disappear.  
_Maybe someday my bubble will burst as well_ , Matt thought just as another one Jamie had blown did just that and the smoke it had held within obscured his face. Jamie laughed.


End file.
